No One But You ✔️ Reddie

Thirteen

Eddie thought that he would like college. He didn't.

He thought he'd find a sense of belonging, something to fill the void that occupied so much of his heart, of a childhood and adolescence that he could scarcely recall. He didn't. He had never felt quite so isolated.

He thought he would discover who he was. He did. Within a few weeks of living with his first roommate, a loud-mouthed, overgrown orangutan of a football player, Eddie discovered that he was a neurotic hypochondriac who was damn near impossible to live with.

He thought he would make good friends and bad decisions. He sort of did. He made two friends: a boy named Cal and a girl named Myra. They could not have been more opposite from one another or hated one another more. Both were walking bad decisions.

The worst decision was becoming Myra's boyfriend. He wondered how it had happened, and sadly settled on the reality that he'd been drawn to the fact that she was meticulous and clean, more obsessively than he was, which was not an easy thing to find.

She talked an awful lot. It wasn't all bad: she liked to talk about the news and current affairs, though she tended to believe everything that she read and had a generally pessimistic outlook. Crucially, she liked to talk to Eddie, which was nice, even if sometimes it felt that she was talking at him, and Eddie liked the noise.

She was a big girl; there was something comforting and matronly about her, with an edge of authority, like a dinner lady or a librarian or a paediatric nurse. If she told you to eat, you ate. If she told you to hush, you hushed. If she told you to take your medicine, you took it. It made Eddie feel safe despite the rush and filth of the big city.

'I'll be back before midnight,' Eddie promised, his face almost purple as he laced up his boots.

'You know the rule.' Myra shook her head condescendingly. 'If I've already made a dinner, then you stay home, and you eat it.'

She used to joke to Eddie that it was like they were married even before they got together. She called herself Mrs Kaspbrak. She cooked his meals, she laundered his clothes, she kissed his cheeks and held him close, she constantly told him to go to bed and rest because he looked tired, looked sick. He believed her. 

'I haven't seen Cal in months. He's only in town for the night. I'm going to see him. End of story.' Eddie smacked his hands together to punctuate his words.

'But I made dinner,' Myra stomped her foot.

She drove him crazy. She was possessive and demanded his attention and meaningless words; she hated when he spent time without her. They argued a lot, shouting matches which lasted for hours.

Eddie was never sure quite where the frustrations came from, all exploding out of him like fire from a dragon. Myra was a formidable competitor, harsh and critical, with a catalogue of catchphrases to shut down almost any of Eddie's original thoughts.

He hated arguing with her, but he loved arguing with her. It made him feel something.

'I'm having dinner with Cal.' Eddie smacked his lips together. 'Either throw it out or, I don't know, we can have it for leftovers.'

'I'm not throwing out a perfectly good meal. And I can't even believe that you would suggest that we eat reheated food, so help me God, Edward.'

Eddie darted for his coat, knowing that if he didn't leave soon, he would never escape. 'Then just fucking eat it all yourself, because I'm going out.'

'If you open that door, Edward, you are going to be in so much trouble.' Myra seethed.

He hesitated, then smiled as he opened the door. He couldn't think of a single punishment she could dole out that wouldn't be worth spending this night with Cal. He left. He felt as though a breeze chilled his face, like a tension slipped from his shoulders.

Cal met him in the West Village. It was his favourite part of town: clean, pretty. It was where people always seemed to live in the movies.

Unlike Myra or Eddie, Cal was a buoyant optimist, a six-foot-four beanpole with shock blonde hair and a piercing in his left nostril which he'd given himself at a party during college.

Nobody, least of all Myra, understood why Cal and Eddie were such good friends. They had shockingly little in common and had starkly contrasting personalities, but there was a firm glue which was their exact same taste in humour, and this was why they often found themselves at the same comedy club when Cal came back into town.

'What's on tonight?' Eddie asked once they'd sat down at their favourite table with their drinks.

Cal fumbled for the flyer. He read, 'The show is called 'Trashmouth'.' Cal made a face. 'I'm not sure what that means. Reviews are good though. You heard of it?'

Eddie felt a wall crash down in his brain, like the doors closing in Star Trek. He rubbed at his temples. His brain crashed with curse words. 'Fuck,' he muttered. When he realised Cal was staring, he said, 'Weirdly, it rings a bell, but I can't think where from.'

An Emcee stepped up to the microphone. 'Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to tonight's show. We're very excited to bring to the stage our performer; he's an up-and-coming star. Please put your hands together for Richie Tozier!'

A man stepped out of the wings, one hand raised up in greeting to the crowd, a great beaming smile plastered on his stubbled jaw. He couldn't have been more than twenty-six years old, with a mop of curled dark hair and square glasses. He wore a heinous Hawaiian shirt and shoes without socks.

Eddie felt like he was experiencing déjà vu. It was something that happened to him a lot, like when the boy in the front row of his math class stuttered on his questions, like when he walked past a souvenir stand tied with a dozen balloons, like when he saw a kid grappling with an inhaler.

'Good evening all. I'm Richie Tozier, but everyone calls me Trashmouth. Don't know quite where the name's from, I'm fucking hoping it wasn't from my first girlfriend regarding my technique.' The audience tittered. 'But then again, my best friend's mom was a harsh critic.' The audience scoffed, disgusted but still laughing. 'I don't remember a lot from when I was a kid. People say that's weird, but fuck, I can hardly remember last weekend and you expect me to remember my fucking childhood?'

Eddie stared throughout the set. There was something eerily familiar about him which almost made him nauseous. The way he punctuated his cuss words as though he deeply enjoyed them, the way he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his poor posture, the 'your mom' style of jokes. He was sure the name was one he'd heard before. Richie Tozier. Trashmouth.

'Thank you very much, New York. Goodnight!' Richie signed off and disappeared into the wings.

Cal cackled, 'Hey, he wasn't bad. Little rough around the edges, but hey, you've got to have an angle.' He looked over at Eddie. 'Are you okay, Eddie?'

Eddie snapped back into the room. 'Yeah, all good,' he said, unconvincingly.

Eddie saw things in his head, vague hallucinations, like a memory test of random objects. A fanny-pack. A comic book. A bicycle. A paddle-ball. An arcade game. He didn't know from where they had generated, nor why he felt such a kindred connection to each one, as though they held more value than what they appeared.

Cal and Eddie rounded off their night. Eddie checked the time and saw that he would be home before midnight, which could sate some of Myra's wrath.

As he climbed into the cab, he thought about the comedian Richie Tozier. He smiled to himself, 'He was pretty funny.'